The Zennist: Having in mind Zen is about Mind

For many Westerners, their first image of Zen is a row of monks with shaved heads, wearing black robes, sitting in meditation. But this image has nothing really to do with Zen Buddhism’s real message which is best reflected by this passage from a sermon by Zen master Ma-tsu (Mazu) (709-788).

“All of you should believe that your mind is Buddha, that this mind is identical with Buddha. The great master Bodhidharma came from India to China, and transmitted the One Mind teaching of Mahayana so that it can lead you all to awakening.” (Cheng Chien Bhikshu, Sun-Face Buddha, p. 62).

Ideally, the institution of Zen including Zen centers exist to support the individual in trying to awaken to Buddha Mind, or the same, One Mind. However, joining a Zen center or putting on robes of a Zen monk are not going to awaken anyone to anything profound. Learning to sit in zazen is not going to be of much help either because, for the most part, the practice of zazen has more to do with the maintenance of a proper, physical posture. The emphasis, in other words, is not on mind but upon posture which then becomes a ritual.

If the goal of Zen Buddhism were not directed to the One Mind teaching it would, eventually, fall prey to some kind of dogma—even a dogma of just sitting. But since our focus begins with our own mind, which for us is immediate and natural, we begin by facing the right territory of our search for Buddha Mind. This is depicted in the first step of the famous ten oxherding pictures, which is the search for the ox, the ox being the symbol of our true nature which goes by many names in Buddhism. As we should expect, our vision is impaired by a forest of wildgrass, broad rivers, mountains and trails that go deeper and deeper—all of this symbolizing the wild nature of our mind that hides the awakened Mind.

If our ideas about Zen Buddhism are superficial we will never find the ox. We will spend the rest of our life going to some Zen temple deluding ourselves that some substantial progress has been made, or find another religion that suits us better. At this point, Zen ceases to be Zen insofar as the realization of Buddha Mind is all but ignored, replaced by dead rituals, such as just sitting, overseen by a teacher who has no realization of Mind; whose authority is institutional rather than the Mind to Mind transmission. At this stage disputes arise as to what the real meaning of Zen is. Yet, if we turn to look at Zen literature, such as the Sayings of Chung Feng, we find that “Mind is the substance of Ch'an (Zen).” Bodhidharma came from the land of the Buddha's birth in order to expound the teaching of Buddha Mind. He taught those of his day how to realize it.